The Cousin
by Saz1
Summary: Raina Metz comes to New Salem in hope of emotional space, but what she finds in this small town is far worse than anything she has faced before...


Title: The Cousin Author: Saz Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: Some of SC, I guess. Warnings: Language, reference to sex, violence. Disclaimers: All of SC belongs to L J Smith. Raina Metz, Ben Metz, Tim Metz, James Metz, Mike Metz, Louisa Gibbs, Jonny Simmons and all other original characters belong to me. If you wish to use them, e-mail me. Summary: Takes place before SC. Nick finds a girl. Girl is a bit messed up in the head = Perfect match. Big twist in the plot later on. Comments: Please give reviews, 'cos you know I love you.  
  
Nick was depressed.as usual. It was Friday night, and he was drinking his sorrows away at the nearest bar. The people around him were dull, colourless and boring. His eyes swept across the room and he saw a girl looking equally depressed as he was. She was looking down at her beer can and grimacing at the fact it was empty. Her jewel green eyes were narrowed and her hair.her hair was dark brown and cascading down her back in hundreds of skinny braids. He couldn't tell if she was tall or anything, after all, she was sitting down. But by looking at her face he could tell she looked around seventeen or eighteen. His stare was ended by the loud shrill of a cell phone. She looked up and reached into her bag. She pulled out an expensive silver phone and picked it up.  
  
"Hello?" She said, slightly annoyed. He obviously couldn't here the other side of the conversation, but listened anyway.  
  
"Yeah.New Salem? You know it? Cool. I don't think they'll look for me here. I'm stayin' with some guy called Chris, one of my cousins or something. Anyway, I'll talk to you later OK? Bye Loz."  
  
He sat up and looked at her. She couldn't mean Chris Henderson could she? He walked over and said  
  
"Hi, you're new around aren't you?"  
  
"Unfortunately yes, everyone seems to know each other around here." She was starting to turn away when she said  
  
"You wouldn't by any chance know where Chris Henderson lives do you? I have no map, and let's just say my drivin' skills pretty much came to an end when I nearly ran over the kid with the sign sayin' 'FINAL LAP'." Nick laughed and said  
  
"We actually live quite close, I'll drive you there."  
  
"Cool."  
  
"So, are you related to Chris at all?" Nick said. He hadn't heard of this girl before. "Yeah, we're half-cousins. His dad's half-sister, oh shit, I forgot to mention my name. Raina Metz." The name struck Nick like a bolt of lightning. Raina, He was sure Mr. Henderson had mentioned it before.  
  
"I actually live on the same street as Chris and Doug. What brings you here anyway?" Nick was feeling unbearably nosy.  
  
"I.well I wanted a change of scenery I guess. When you're livin' in a tiny apartment in Hell's Kitchen with four brothers, space is hard to find. I got in touch with Chris by e-mail and he invited me over here." She smiled.  
  
"Wow, four brothers? I bet you were the only girl, and the youngest, too." Nick said suddenly.  
  
"Yeah, you're quite the psychic aren't you?" Raina said to him. Nick felt very flattered, even though it was only a guess.  
  
"See that house? We're here." Nick said and shut down the engine. Raina got out and walked up the yard to the large house. Before she knocked on the door she said to Nick  
  
"I'll see you around OK? And.thanks." She turned to knock on the door, but Nick was already gone. "Raina! Wow, it's so cool to meet you" Chris said, hugging her.  
  
"Yeah, Kori will be very happy about another chick in the house!" Doug said immediately after him. Raina's uncle walked down the corridor and came out onto the porch and said stiffly  
  
"Dinner's nearly ready. Come inside." Raina sat at the dinner table looked at Mr. Henderson.  
  
"Raina, how is Maria doing?" Mr. Henderson asked about Raina's mother.  
  
"Actually, she left my dad not long after I was born. After mom left New Salem to live with my dad in New York, she sort of cut off talkin' to y'all over here and had my older brother Ben. Three children later, she had me, and split not long after that." Raina was looking down at her food during this speech.  
  
"Oh, well that is very.informative, Raina." Mr Henderson said.  
  
"So, who are you're other brother's Raina?" Doug said, breaking the silence.  
  
"Well, there's Ben, who's twenty-seven, James who's twenty-four, Mike who's twenty-two and Tim who's nineteen. And of course, me, I'm seventeen." She added.  
  
"I didn't know I had so many cousins. Did your mom marry an outsider?" Chris asked. "What's an outsider? All I know is that my mom married David Metz." She sounded confused. Doug started to say something, but Raina's cell phone rang again. She picked it up and answered. Since Chris was so close, he could hear the conversation.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Raina, I got bad news."  
  
"Loz? What is it?"  
  
"I found him. He's nowhere near New Salem though."  
  
"Where is he?"  
  
"Detroit. Raina, I'm so sorry. I never said nothing to him, honest."  
  
"OK, thanks for tellin' me. If you talk to him, tell him I'm nowhere near here."  
  
"'Kay, Bye."  
  
Raina looked at the family and said  
  
"Can I be excused?" Chris went with Raina to the room she would be sharing with him. A few days ago he and Doug had tossed a coin to see whose room Raina would stay in and Chris won. Raina wasn't staying with Kori because Chris figured Raina would be uncomfortable with Kori's clinginess. Raina walked into the large room that was covered in posters.  
  
Static-x, Taproot, Nirvana, Slipknot, Korn, Adema, InMe and basically anything that was played on MTV2. The two beds had dark purple sheets and one of the beds was unmade. A large stereo system with several expensive surround sound speakers were on brackets in the corners of the room. A giant rack with about two hundred CD's sat next to it. Three skateboards and two pairs of rollerblades were piled on top of each other by the closet. "You can unpack your stuff here, and come downstairs when you're ready." Chris said and left, closing the door behind him.  
  
Raina took her black bag and started taking out her clothes and belongings. There wasn't much, a pair of denim print Buffalo shoes, lots of assorted black underwear, a black vest and shorts to sleep in, a pair of baggy dark blue jeans, some assorted tops with rude or provocative slogans, and a red crushed velvet dress that was backless with laces and longer in back than front. Her laptop was stowed away in her bag. Raina didn't know why she packed the dress, but she thought she might need it. Also, with the clothes she was wearing, a pair of baggy black jeans with a ¾ length black top that said 'Stoned' in white script that looked as if it were on a ransom note; different fonts for each letter. The dark red of her Sketchers were barely visible underneath her jeans. She had a black hardback book with 'Poetry' in fancy silver scrip with her as well. Raina always though the book was good luck. She always carried her phone with her, and a wallet with at least three hundred dollars inside it. For a girl who grew up in the worst part of Manhattan, she had a lot of money all the time.  
  
Raina was about to go downstairs when she saw a miniature whiteboard on the wall behind the beds. In bright red marker was written:  
  
CIRCLE MEETING, MONDAY 14TH JULY TALKING ABOUT TELEKENISIS AND WHO HAS IT BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.  
  
God, these people are weird, Raina thought. She put her phone in her pocket and went downstairs. "Raina, I'm Kori!" A slim teenager ran up to her. Kori hugged Raina in a nearly choking embrace.  
  
"That's.uh.real nice." Raina said.struggling away from Kori's grip.  
  
"I bet you'll be in that Creative Writing class.a load of people from the Club are in it." Kori said quickly  
  
"The Club?" Everyone was talkin' about 'Outsiders' and 'The Club', it was getting Raina confused.  
  
"Oh, don't worry somebody else will tell you." Kori went to grab the now- ringing phone in the kitchen.  
  
"Raina! Sorry, but we got school tomorrow and I'm pretty sure you'll have to come." Doug said, wafting in from the dining room.  
  
"Don't worry, I could never stay at home and watch daytime TV all day." Raina smiled at him.  
  
"Don't sweat about scheduling either, just show up to class and they'll take you." Doug returned the smile, but had wisdom within it. Doug started to turn away, but Raina stopped him and said  
  
"Doug, what the hell is The Club?" Raina sounded confused and slightly annoyed.  
  
"Well, I might as well tell you. I'll be brief though. It's a group of people that are sometimes more liked than others.well not liked really, but treated better. Since you're related to me and Chris, you're a sort of honorary member." Dough left out all the bits about witchcraft and Crowhaven road and everything.  
  
"Oh, so who's in The Club?" Raina wanted to know.  
  
"Well, there's me and Chris, Nick, you've met him, Adam, Diana, Faye, Suzan, Deborah, Melanie, Laurel and Sean. You'll meet them tomorrow." He smiled again, and left. Raina went upstairs again and took her laptop out of her bag. She set it out carefully on Chris's desk, and plugged it into the phone point. She connected and checked her e-mail. There was nothing new, but she decided to write and e-mail to Loz.  
  
Loz, The people here are seriously weird. Are you sure he's in Detroit? And for that matter, where are you? Still in New York? If you are, can you drop by the apartment and send me Jonny's e-mail address? It's in that red book. ~R  
  
Raina shut down the laptop, took the plug out of the wall and put it back in her bag. The clock on the wall read 9:40. Raina decided that she would sort some more stuff out, have a shower and be fresh and ready for school tomorrow, when she would be determined to find out more about Nick. Raina wasn't sure why, but something drew him to her.  
  
Nick sat in his room and thought about Raina Metz. Her smile, her beautifully tanned skin, her hair and her jewel green eyes. The way she smiled at him, the way she spoke about stuff, and had a sort of 'screw 'em all' attitude towards life in general. It was close to eleven now and he wanted good sleep tonight, but he couldn't get Raina out of his mind.  
  
At around eight the next morning, Raina got out of bed to see Chris who was still asleep. The outfit that she had worn in bed showed off her two tattoos, a weird Chinese symbol that was about two centimetres by two centimetres, above her left breast, near her collarbone but it was invisible when she wore clothes. Another one, on the middle of her lower back was a strange swirling symbol that was about four centimetres wide and around six centimetres high. They were both black, and the one on Raina's back was far more noticeable than the one near her collarbone. She put on her dark blue jeans, her Sketchers and a vivid blue top with the Superman logo on it. Underneath the logo, there was a slogan saying 'Super-Bitch'. She grabbed her shoulder bag, now empty of clothes and hit the still sleeping Chris with it.  
  
"Ow! What the hell.." Chris sat up and noticed that it was 8:20. He got up and shrugged a t-shirt and a pair of jeans on.  
  
"You really are a true Henderson. Only we would do something like that" Chris laughed and started to put his shoes on.  
  
"So what class should I go to first? I don't even have a schedule." For a moment Raina looked slightly scared and lost, like a frightened child.  
  
"Don't worry. Just go to that weird poetry class or whatever that Faye goes to first period, and you can make it up from there." He got his bag and continued  
  
"Do you wanna go to school now? I'm not really a breakfast person, but if you want eat something then go ahead." Raina looked at the clock which now read 8:35 and said  
  
"Nah, I'm not hungry either. Let's go." She put her bag on her shoulder and left the room with Chris, to wait for Doug. Since Doug had big trouble locating one of his shoes, they didn't arrive at school until 8:58. All eyes turned to look at Raina. First they thought of how pretty she was, but then their thoughts turned to the fact that she had arrived with Chris and Doug Henderson. The bell went and all the students trudged unwillingly off to their classes. Raina showed up at the classroom she was told to come to when she saw a very tall girl stand in front of her. She had a long curly mane of black hair, practically white skin and haunting amber coloured eyes. Her skimpy black top and black jeans were just a little too overboard in Raina's opinion.  
  
"I hear you're related to Chris and Doug." That husky voice was disturbing, but  
  
Raina wasn't afraid, she wasn't afraid of anything.  
  
"So? Got a problem with that?" Raina's green eyes became menacing and Faye backed away, slightly intimidated.  
  
"No problem, not at all. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Faye." Faye smiled nastily and sat down at her desk.  
  
"Hello and welcome to class, kids. Write a poem today, it can be about anything." The teacher looked at Raina, noticing she was new but he didn't say anything about it. Raina liked poetry, her old therapist had said that poetry was a good idea to release stress, but her poems just turned out dark and twisted. It wasn't long before Dr. Thorpe had thought that Raina might be connected with something.supernatural. The Doc phoned Raina's brother Ben and he found the Doc.Raina hadn't seen Dr. Thorpe since. Raina had no idea on what to write a poem about, she was completely uninspired. She pondered ideas until five minutes before the lesson was over, then a piercing shout tore through the room.  
  
"Her! It was her! She put all that stuff in my locker!" A preppy looking girl was hysterical and pointing at Raina.  
  
"I never put nothin' in her locker" The teacher grimaced at Raina's bad grammar and said  
  
"I'm sure you misunderstood something, Sally." The teacher was trying hopelessly to calm her down. Raina was also trying to explain that she didn't even know where Sally's locker was, let alone the fact that she didn't put anything in there. Raina shut her eyes tightly, and a sound like a glass breaking echoed through the room. All of the windows were covered in cracks; tiny lines that and swirling crevices that completely covered the windows. Faye looked at Raina, surprised at her power, knowing that the girl didn't understand the telekinesis. Faye stood up and said  
  
"Sally's just trying to frame Raina. She lives on Crowhaven road near me."  
  
Faye's sentence shut everyone up and the teacher as well as Sally sat down. Faye glared at her and Sally glared back. There was an awful silence, followed by an ear-shattering bell. Students walked out of the room, gossiping and groaning about the next class. Raina walked over to Faye and said  
  
"Why'd you save my ass like that?" She sounded confused, as if nobody had tried to help her before.  
  
"It was me who put all that crap in Sally's locker, and she knew it. She just wanted you in trouble, Oh yeah, nice job with the window." Faye knew that Raina had broken the windows in the classroom, and that it wasn't her fault that she couldn't control her power. The rest of that morning's classes passed with a blur and Raina found herself heading towards the cafeteria for lunch. There was a separate room that she saw Chris and Doug in and she waved. They motioned for her to come in and Raina walked over to the room.  
  
"Everyone," Chris started. "This is our cousin Raina." The Club looked at  
  
Raina and introduced themselves. Diana came up first and hugged Raina, her blond hair splaying over Raina's shoulders. Deborah came next, shaking her hand stiffly and sitting down again. Suzan walked over, her large chest jiggling to hug Raina tightly. Sean hugged her in a way that Raina could only describe as 'too close'. Laurel and Melanie's hugs were similar to each other, friendly but non-committal. Diana looked over at Nick and Faye.  
  
"Aren't you going to introduce yourselves?" She sounded slightly annoyed, or as close to annoyed that Diana could be.  
  
"We've met." Nick and Faye said in unison. Diana looked surprised but didn't say anything.  
  
"So, is anything happenin' tonight? Somethin' cool maybe?" Raina's bored voice broke the silence between The Club.  
  
"Well, we're having a circle me- I mean a little get-together. You can come if you want." Diana couldn't believe she had almost blown the group's cover. Nick rushed over to Raina and said  
  
"You know, I think you should come outside with me. I can explain something to you." The Club looked at him in disbelief, but the look on Nick's face was obvious that he wasn't going to explain anything; he just wanted to get Raina alone. Nick ushered Raina out of the cafeteria and took her to a hill near the playing field.  
  
"Raina," Nick began. "I want you to tell me stuff about you; Faye was telling me about something that happened in your first class today, something that we can help you with." Raina's eyes widened.  
  
"Who are you people?" Before Nick could say anything, she carried on. "You can't help me.y'all are crazy. It was supposed to be gift; my mother's letter said so! It turned out to be a curse though. A fuckin'curse!" Nick put his arms around Raina as she sobbed into his sweater.  
  
"Shhh.don't worry, we can help you." Raina wriggled out of his grip and said  
  
"How? How the hell can you help me?" Her eyes narrowed and a few twigs on the grassy field that they were sitting on started to smoke. Nick stared at the twigs.  
  
"What the hell.did you do that?"  
  
Raina's eyes flashed gold for a moment, or at least Nick thought they did, and tiny flames erupted from the twigs. She was silent but Nick already knew that she was the one who did it- after all, twigs don't just catch fire on there own. He put the tiny flames out with his jacket, and then turned to stare at her in awe. Raina looked frightened and lost, as if she were only ten years old. They leaned towards each other, their lips meeting in a soft kiss. Raina threaded her hands through his hair when an annoying noise tore through the air. The bell. "Oh, great," Raina murmured unenthusiastically.  
  
"Cut with me?" Nick offered.  
  
"I would seriously take that up.but I'm tryin' so hard not to get a detention on my first day."  
  
Raina smiled and picked up her bag. She ran off to her next class, her braids swirling in the July wind. Raina roamed the large school building for her next class; she had decided to take art. The studio door swung open before her and she walked in. A girl with a long dark skirt and a beige peasant blouse came up to her and said joyfully  
  
"Greetings! Are you one of the Oh-So-Lucky ones in The Club?" She put her hands on Raina's shoulders, expecting an answer.  
  
"I guess so, I mean, I'm a relation of two Club members." The girl's enthusiastic eyes were making Raina a bit dizzy.  
  
"Oh my! Girls, over here!" The girl motioned the other girls over. "We got a real one in our class! How ever so lucky are we?" The other girls in the studio nodded their heads in agreement.  
  
"I'm Tree," The girl started to say. Tree? Who the hell would call their kid that, Raina thought when Tree spoke again.  
  
"Oh, my real name isn't Tree, it's Annie. That's Moon-glow, Papaya, Rainbow, Phoenix, and Onyx and.Olivia." Tree's nose wrinkled as she pointed to the most 'normal' girl in the corner. Raina looked over at the girl, and almost shivered. Something about her was definitely creepy. Her long mousy hair hung in un-brushed sheets down her back and her face was full of zits and freckles. They weirdest thing about her was her eyes. They were grey, and held no emotion whatsoever. Olivia's eyes continued to stare at Raina with such. hatred. Raina looked at Olivia, and said  
  
"You got a problem?"  
  
"Why, of course. You're one of them." As the teacher walked in, Raina walked straight out the open doorway. She guessed that art just wasn't her thing. Louisa wandered round Raina's old apartment in Hell's Kitchen. The place was empty, and looked as like nobody had stepped inside there for weeks. Dirty clothes and beer cans covered the old couch and the microwave door was hanging open. Louisa carefully opened the door to Raina's old room. The room was exactly how Raina had left it, in military neatness. She had mastered the art of packing up her entire life in under six minutes from a young age. The closet was empty, apart from an old coat that was her father's. The desk was empty of possessions, but there was a tiny photo tacked on with duck tape in the corner. It was enough to make Louisa cry. It was a picture of her and Raina, arm in arm at Central Park. Underneath was an inscription.  
  
Me and Loz, 25th July 1999.  
  
Louisa wiped a stray tear from her cheek and looked for the red book Raina talked about in her brief e-mail. It was in the second drawer down inside her desk. As she left the small room and headed for an Internet Café, Louisa couldn't wait to tell Raina what she had in mind.  
  
R, I found the address. It's jonny8156@hotmail.com. I got good news. I just arranged a plane ticket to New Salem! Do you think the guy that you're staying with will mind?  
  
See ya then! Loz  
  
Raina thought that she might cut class after all and headed for the exit. Nick, Chris and Doug were just leaving as well. 


End file.
